Author Interview - Sean Van Damme

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I’m just an average 20 something guy who lives in Richmond VA with my wonderful fiancé and our animals. I work at a TV news station as a video editor and have been writing in some form or another most of my life. I picked up the novel writing bug back in middle school and that ran for a few years then I got obsessed with movies, which lead me into news, and then eventually I went back to novels after I kept hearing about KDP and Pubit. Most of my free time is consumed by video games and TV shows, which really have replaced movies as my preferred form of visual story telling.

What is your book about?

My book (The Long Night) is a dark fantasy novel about a group of heroes that under normal circumstances would hate each other having to come tighter to fight a horrible evil that has descended upon the land cloaking it in darkness and death.

How long did it take you to write?

The first draft took just under two months to write, I was only working part time then so I had oodles of time to dedicate to the book, and with an end goal I just plowed through the text till I was finished. Having a solid outline also helped more then I can say.

What inspired you to write this novel?

The book started as a mod for Dragon Age Origins, but when that fell through and I had an itch to write, I picked up all of the outlines and prewriting world building that I had done and turned it into a book. I had wanted to go back to my old sci-fi story but it is hard to pick up a project seven or eight years after you walked away from it.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Back in middle school when I was just writing on lose leaf paper and shoving it into the back of my binders, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I had walked away from that dream for a while when I went into news, but returned to it after I got back into reading, a hobby that school and WoW had stolen from me.

What part of writing do you struggle with? Character, plot, description or dialogue?

I struggle with making my characters real people with past experiences that influence the present. I fall too quickly into making them one or two dimensional figures that are not living breathing people. After that I do struggle with description because sometimes I feel I am going overboard, and for me less is more, I don’t need three paragraphs about how the sky looks, so I at times struggle to rein in the purple prose.

What made you decide on self-publishing?

I had been a big supporter of ebooks and self-publishing, and finally decided I needed to put my money where my mouth was and go for it. Also the idea of querying seemed painful and just something that made me not want to write at all. The hard work with other people is what made me stop wanting to direct movies, I’m a very solitary artist.

Did you have a professional editor?

No, I have been using a combination of a program from Serenity called Editor, and my soon to be Father-in-Law who is a retired PhD with years of writing, and reading under his belt. He gives me honest feedback and reams and reams of grammatical corrections. I figure one day when I have a little more capitol to throw around I’ll go for a professional editor, but right now I have enough grammar Nazis in my family.

Do you edit as you write or wait until your book is finished?

On The Long Night I just wrote till I was finished, same with my second WIP for NaNo but now I stop and at the very least spell check what I am writing every few sentences, or when a song ends on my iPod and I have to change it. I let the not editing get so bad with The Long Night that Word took away my red bars because I had to many errors to track any longer.

Are you currently working on any projects?

Yes I am working on a hard-boiled detective series, and I also have a first draft completed techno-thriller sitting on my desk. All I can say about when those will come out is some time this year, I’m moving slower on the edits then I would like, mostly because I can’t pull myself away from the internet and The Old Republic.

Any advice for new authors?

Write every day. I know it is hackneyed but it works. Also set a deadline for yourself and try to meet that for when you will finish the first draft. Working in TV news I found that the deadline helped me because that is something that I am so used to in my working world that it transferred over, and I set one now for every project I start.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what type of music?

Yes and it changes based on the book. I have a writing playlist that is mostly Black Hawk Down, and Battlestar Galactica soundtracks. When I was writing my action book that was kind of an 80’s throwback I blasted the power ballads and Top Gun soundtracks.

Best time of day to write?

I write in the Moring and early afternoon, because I don’t go to work until 2pm. I sometimes write at night on weekends but find that I still get my best work done in the morning shortly after I wake up.

Top 3 authors?

Stephen King

Frank Herbert

George RR Martin

Top 3 novels of all time?

Dune (Frank Herbert)

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)

I, Jedi (Michael A. Stackpole)

Top 3 movies of all time?

The Empire Strikes Back (I don’t do episode numbers for the original trilogy)

Gladiator

The Two Towers

What do you read the most? Fiction or non-fiction?

Fiction by far, I’m surrounded by non-fiction and true crime all day.

Is your book in Print, ebook or both?

Only ebook at the moment, I haven’t gotten around to doing print yet.

Where can your readers contact you? Links, etc.

My Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sean-Van-Damme/199605780094806

Twitter @seanathin23

My Blog which I haven’t undated in a while but will be getting back to http://seanswritingadventure.blogspot.com/

Thank you for the opportunity.